


Snowblind

by FalleNess, Gwyllt



Series: Enemies with benefits [3]
Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Drama, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Drugs, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Gen, Gray Morality, Minor Character Death, One Night Stands, Out of Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Resslington, Suffering Donald Ressler, Thriller, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22020547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalleNess/pseuds/FalleNess, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwyllt/pseuds/Gwyllt
Summary: What if an FBI agent gets hooked on cocaine?*Frenzied, he licks his gums, the buds on his tongue picking up on a barely bitter taste, and in an instant—the high takes over. It coats you like honey; warms you up like a woman’s body turned on by sex, rubbing against yours, teasing to make each body cell asking for more; and, at last, it spills through you with the best climax you’ve ever had.
Relationships: Donald Ressler & Raymond Reddington, Donald Ressler/Elizabeth Keen, Donald Ressler/Original Character(s), Donald Ressler/Raymond Reddington, Raymond Reddington & Donald Ressler, Raymond Reddington/Donald Ressler
Series: Enemies with benefits [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1419496
Comments: 34
Kudos: 40





	1. Just one fix

**Author's Note:**

> This is written originally in Russian as a part of my whumptober (the list is here https://ibb.co/C2fmLyT), although I put here almost all the prompts: 5,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,16,18,19,20,22,23,24,25,29,30,31.  
> ===================  
> Gwyllt, you are BREATHTAKING, and I love you!  
> ===================  
> ATTENTION!  
> Please, read the tags CAREFULLY. Thanks.  
> Donald/Liz is NOT a keenler fluff or whatever, mind that.  
> ===================  
> Within this universe/fic my Ressler and Red are in character, but I'm putting OOC because to the show they are not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: I DO NOT justify drug use or whatever; and I also don't do drugs (you’ll get why I added it when you reach chapter four).

**October 3rd, 2017, Apt. “9B”, 14th Connecticut-Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., 05:30 AM**

He opens his eyes. Perfect, not a crack in it, ceiling meets him. Rolling over, he reaches to turn off a buzzing alarm clock. Getting up, he scratches the back of his head, tousling his hair, and scraping the skin. An instant later—wearily rubs his eyes with the same hand. Seven steps, in complete darkness, almost by touch—and he’s in the bathroom.

The reflection in the mirror doesn’t inspire any optimism: bloodshot eyes, tiny vessels red and dilated; under them—dark circles; the faded ginger hair transforms a pale face into sallow like he’s just come back from the grave.

Feels like it.

His face drawn closer to the mirror, he turns either left or right cheek, brushing the skin with his fingers. Should he shave today? It seems he shouldn’t—the light bristle is barely noticeable, he doesn’t feel it with his fingertips, it’s fine.

Sliding the shower stall door to the side, he steps in and turns on the water. His body shrivels up, not wishing to give up the heat, but he rests his palms against a tiled wall, heading for the lukewarm water. Drops are running down his neck, over his shoulder blades, his spine. His muscles ache from yesterday’s workout. Muttering curses, he slowly straightens up, leaning his back against the wet tiles.

Done, he steps out from the stall, grabs the towel from the dryer, and, wrapping his hips, approaches the sink. He wipes away the fogged up mirror with his hand, then—clutches the bathroom drawer handle, pulls it on, opening a half-empty first aid kit: on the top shelf—an expired aspirin and empty ace bandage wrap, below—flat rows of antidepressants prescribed by the FBI’s shrink, but he moves them aside. Orange pill containers plummet into the sink—whatever. He reaches for one of the discreet black containers at the farthest wall. A hand-scribbled label _“...drine”_ along with the name _“R. Green”_ stands out in the electric light.

_Rupert? Reginald?_

_Raymond?_

His face cut by a crooked grin, he rips the cap off and shakes two white capsules into his palm. Fixing his eyes on those, he puts the pills into his mouth, tilting his head back, letting them slip down the throat. His hands methodically put the plummeted antidepressants back, covering discreet black containers. Before putting the last one, he shakes three pills into his palm, and then, after some hesitation, adds two more—and flushes them down the toilet.

Closing the drawer, he meets his own gaze in the reflection and shrugs.

_Fuck it._

He takes a small white container from another drawer. Jerking his head back, he pulls his lower eyelids down and puts in two drops into each eye one by one. His eyes stinge instantly; he squeezes them shut and lowers his head, his fingers gripping the sink’s edges.

_Shit._

He wipes the tears off the corner of his eye with his thumb knuckle and then grabs another container—this time a beige one, with a “MAC” label on it. His hands are shaky, and the foundation smudges, but he stubbornly starts over until the dark circles under his eyes disappear.

If he keeps on like that, he could freelance as a make-up artist.

Wiping himself dry with a towel, he throws it into the laundry basket but misses—to hell with it. Smoothing his almost dried hair, he throws a hand up, giving a middle finger to his reflection, and then leaves the bathroom.

* * *

**Washington, D.C., a blacksite in the tunnels under the J. E. Hoover building, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, 09:26 AM**

The office reeks of women’s perfume and dust—since the very day he’s forced to share this place with the Special Agent Elizabeth Keen, every damn time it “slips her mind” to spray her cheap stink at home. Theirs0 office is more like a perfume store now—or a fakeup shop, if to look at the windowsill crammed with jars, tubes, and containers. However, today such trivia doesn’t ruin Ressler’s mood a lick. 

“Looking fab, Keen.” Leaning against the back of the hard swivel chair, he wheels from the desk to look at Keen who has just dashed into the office.

Her messed up hair is full of sticky feathers, blouse and pants stained. She stinks of paint and chicken crap—what a wicked delight, all better than Chanel. 

“Screw you, Ressler.”

He, smirking, wheels back to the desk buried under the evidence vault boxes, case files, paperwork, and god knows what else. More than half of it doesn’t even belong to him. Personal space? It doesn’t exist in Keen’s dictionary. 

“Don’t you wanna take a shower? It’s a long day, you know.” 

Keen gives him a middle finger not even raising her eyes at him, busy at her desk. 

Someone knocks at the office door. 

“Agent Ressler, Director Cooper wants you at his office, it’s urgent,” a scrawny guy in the square-framed glasses, more like a nerd than an agent, gabbles, vanishing in an instant. 

Keen raises her brows; Ressler, ignoring her inquisitive stare, gets up from his chair. Smooths his hair, adjusts his jacket—helps him to focus.

Anxiety cuts off the oxygen, coiling around his throat in a tight knot. He takes a deep breath and yanks his tie loose.

“You know why?” Keen asks; he doesn't answer and leaves the office. 

* * *

**Two years ago, Cuba Libre Restaurant, Washington, D.C., Mount Vernon Square, 10:15 PM**

“What is that you really want, Agent Ressler?”

“Is it a crime to enjoy drinks with a colleague?”

“And how often you enjoy drinks with the FBI’s Chief Medical Officer?”

“Not as often as I’d like to.”

“Really? But Donald,”—Isabella Vargas cocks her head flirtatiously, stirring the melting rocks in a tall glass with her straw—“you’ll be in deep trouble then.”

_You have no idea._

He pulls his jacket aside, his fingers slipping into the inside pocket. Waiting for the bartender to disappear, he lays out four photographs on the bar and leans on the back of the narrow chair, swirling the tall glass with his fingers.

Bella’s horse-like face, long and drawn, now is the same shade as the greasy glass’ coaster. As she touches the pictures one by one, her fingers tremble: two teenagers out on the parking lot, a gang on Penn Quarter—one of the known corners for junkies—a teen in a hoodie with a snow baggie in his hands...

“This... You're lying, it's a fake, you did it...” Her voice is shaking.

“It is pretty much real.” Bella attempts to disagree, but Donald cuts her off. “And you know it.” He draws himself so close he smells her breath, infused with vodka and grenadine, whispering to her: “Let’s count. Distribution,”—he makes himself comfortable on the chair, bending his fingers—“illegal possession of a handgun... Ten, at least. It’s his college year, right?”

“You... You... You wouldn’t dare. I-I... I’ll take this to the Assist...” She glances at the picture and stops talking, squeezing her glass.

“Guess we’ll get on anyway.”

“What should I do?” Her voice quavers, a mixture of fear and shame.

Donald chugs his whiskey and puts the glass on the bar.

“Corner of Irving and 14th. Ten minutes. If you don't show up, the Assistant Director's gonna find these at his desk first thing tomorrow morning.”

* * *

**Washington, D.C., a blacksite in the tunnels under the J. E. Hoover building, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, 09:32 AM**

“You wanted to see me, Director Cooper?” asks Donald, closing the door. There's no answer, and the air in the office oozes with danger.

_Something is wrong._

He glances around with a well-trained eye. Cooper is not wearing his jacket,—there, it hangs on his armchair—and for whatever reason, he stubbornly averts his gaze from him. Behind Cooper—a bookcase full of files, on the window—a sickly plant in an orange pot. Nothing unusual.

Except…

The desk, always crammed as long as Ressler remembers, is unexpectedly clean now, current paperwork organized into a neat stack on the right of Cooper’s hand. The only thing disturbing the impeccable order is a white, letter size piece of paper, some sort of a form.

His gut doesn’t whisper—it _screams._ Something’s wrong.

“Director Cooper?”

Cooper, an ugly death mask molded out of his dark-skinned face, turns to Ressler, staring somewhere over his left shoulder, not meeting his eyes.

Bad, bad, very bad.

“What is it?” Ressler points at the form, choking down the spreading anxiety sucking him on the inside.

“You tell me.”

Ressler approaches the desk—the longest ten seconds in his life. He glances over lines and columns, and a heading draws his attention: **“MEDICAL REVIEW...”** , then—flat rows of figures with unknown designations. He studies the sheet carefully, stumbling on **“POSITIVE”**.

**EPHEDRINE **SCREEN CUTOFF: **500 MG/NL**  
CONFIRM CUTOFF: **1000 MG/NL**

 **MDMA** SCREEN CUTOFF: **500 MG/NL**  
CONFIRM CUTOFF: **800 MG/NL**

_Fuck._

Cooper casts an unreadable look at him. Opening the desk drawer, he pulls out another sheet, this time **“RESIGNATION LETTER”.** The Bureau’s insignia with its “ _Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity”_ seems nothing but a joke.

Ressler takes the paper from his hands, Cooper’s signature already on it.

“Who?” Donald asks, gripping a pen so hard his nails whiten. “I’ll sign it, but I have a right to—”

“No,”—Cooper clips out—“you don’t.”

Donald leans over the desk, his teeth clenched. Just as he throws his hand to sign, the office door opens.

“Ressler?” Keen, no feathers this time but a light stench of crap, halts in the doorway. She glances around the office, but doesn’t find anything compromising—Ressler could swear there’s a look of bitter disappointment on her face. She clicks her heels to leave when she spots the resignation letter in Ressler’s hands.

Her eyes widen.

“It’s true, isn’t it? Drugs?!” Ressler barely crumples the resignation letter—won’t help, Cooper’s got a heap of those in his desk—and gives her the most loathsome look he’s capable of. She, of course, doesn’t get the hint. “But how you… I can’t believe it! And Red, he told!..”

The name is pounding in his ears.

“What _he_ has to—”

Cooper cuts in—and even rises to his feet, placing both palms down onto the desk.

“Agent Keen, I’d ask you do not enter my office without a knock next time,” he speaks very quietly.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” She vanishes behind the door.

“Ressler, resignation.”

He turns around, puzzled. Cooper looks him straight in the eye, and Ressler, as if in a dream, slowly puts the paper down.

“Your badge, ID, and phone.” Ressler draws his second smartphone out of his pants, unhooks his badge from the belt and the ID with the bar-code and photograph. “Your service weapon too.” He puts his “Sauer” on the desk.

Cooper, not mouthing a single word, locks the “Sauer” at his drawer, zero attention on him.

 _This is it,_ Ressler figures. _The visit’s over._

* * *

Ressler leaves Cooper’s office, stifling an urge to slam the door shattering the glass. Nothing’s changed outside: a bunch of dumb idiots saving the world which doesn’t fucking need it—eventually it all goes to hell one way or another.

Keen is found quick, at theirs— _hers_ —office, shuffling through case files in the filing cabinet. Ressler creeps in, quietly closing the door behind him, and jerks the blinds down. Her reaction time is shit—two leaps from the door to the cabinet, and he pins Keen to a file rack, the metal drawer shoved in place with a heavy clank.

“You...nuts?” she wheezes, grabbing his wrists.

“Reddington. Where’s he?” Ressler clips, unbothered, his grip firm. What they're gonna do? _Fire him?_

“How do I...” Her long nails scratch his skin. “Ress...”

She’s hurt. He wants to go on—everyone knows who is the big mouth slut at the whole FBI—but he puts his hands down, folding his arms on his chest, his eyes drilling into her.

Keen glares at him. Anger, hate, worry; but the most prominent emotion is fear. She’s terrified of what he’s going to do. What he _can_ do.

Her eyes fixed on him, she retreats to her desk and glues herself to the screen. It’s black and the PC is off—she’s only pretending, and Ressler sees it.

Someone jerks the door open.

_Who the fuck...?_

“Everything’s alright, Donald?” Cooper asks indifferently, his eyes roaming over the office.

“Never better.” Ressler picks up an empty box from the floor—Keen’s job?—and pulls out his belongings from his desk drawers. It takes not more than a minute.

At the elevators he presses the button and waits, glancing at his watch. A heavy box makes the wait even more annoying; he keeps his back straight, but his right hand already aches.

Finally, the elevator creaks at his floor and opens.

“Good morning, Donald.” Stepping out from the elevator, Reddington touches the brim of his fedora with his fingertips. He casts a glance at the box in Ressler’s hands. “Not good for you at all, it seems.”

He smirks; Ressler doesn’t get to open his mouth as Reddington turns his back to him.

Not blood—gasoline is boiling in his veins, and Reddington has just thrown there a lighter. A thousand scenarios of what he’d do to Reddington are flashing before his eyes, each and every one of his muscles quiver with anticipation.

Donald turns his head, his eyes fixed on Reddington as he walks away, disappearing behind Cooper’s office door.

_The-fucking-Concierge-of-the-fucking-Crime, goddammit. What the fucking fuck…_

“You’re still here, Donald?”

Ressler flinches at Cooper’s cold voice. He steps into the elevator, pressing the “P” button. The doors screech, cutting him off from the FBI’s office forever.

* * *

**The Washington, D.C. subway, “Federal Triangle” station, 10:25 AM**

The subway’s packed like beans in a can. Ressler, not mouthing an apology, shoves a sluggish old bag out of his way, swipes his metro card through the turnstile, and steps into the car. Of course, no vacant seat is left for him. He, pushing through two Chinese women and their jumbo bags, the rotten eggs stench nauseating, grips the hand-holder. His left palm throbs; Ressler looks down, opening his fingers: an empty service vehicle key chain needles into his palm.

Speeding up, the train thunders on, knocking the eardrums out. Ressler doesn’t know what stop it is now. He gives no shit. No shit, what’s the next stop, and the next one, and the other. God, he gives zero fucks about all of this.

Someone shoulders him aside; a brat with her bitchy-looking mother, making her way to a vacant seat, steps on his foot; a teenage girl turns around, and, not seeing him, elbows Ressler under his ribs. He doesn’t get the chance to make it up to her—the train brakes rapidly, and one of the Chinese women lands on top of him, yelling her head off, or, rather, mouths a series of ultrasonic squeaks.

The crowd thins out, more or less, and Ressler flops onto the seat. The next stop brings two unshaven men in cowboy hats, and he gets squeezed between them, trying not to breathe in the horse shit stench. 

Through wheels graunching and train rumbling, Ressler catches this:

“...you saw this? _‘An FBI agent seized on cocaine-sale charges’_ So this is where our taxes going?! What a shame!”

“Damn straight it is. The balls they’ve got...Unbelievable.”

His cheeks are burning, either rage, or shame, or all at once. Palms are wet, sticky, cuss words going up against his throat but he doesn’t utter a sound, shivering like a paper target on the shooting range. When the train doors screech open, he bolts out from it, flies up the escalator, passing displeased people, and looks for the **“EXIT”** sign.

It doesn’t get better outside. He unbuttons his coat, although it’s windy, his shoes stomping in fresh puddles. _Whatever._ He ups the pace, not looking where he’s going, or at the passers-by, calling him out either “Yo, easy pal”, or “Watch where you going, moron!”. The thoughts are rupturing his skull within, his head on fire.

 _Fuck, do they get it? What do they even know?_ What he does, what he puts on the line—for them, dammit, for this fucking world. Every day, every damn day he’s getting up for one thing—to make this world better. And how grateful this goddamn world is? _Not a single fucking thing._ Nothing, except the overtime he’s paid less than a hooker on Jackson Street.

He’s so done. God, he’s so, so fucking done for these five years at this fucking task force, all for…

_Reddington._

The tip of his tongue abruptly halts over the palate, his throat’s pushing the air out with twice as the force needed to produce an ‘r’ sound. An instant more—and he’ll grind his teeth to dust. 

If Reddington hadn’t surrendered to the FBI, he, Ressler, would have never…

His first time. The first time, when one pill isn’t enough. The first time, when the fix isn’t meant for cracking the puzzle of the ongoing investigation. The first time when he crosses himself out from reality to forget why Reddington has made it out alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear readers, when consuming any [non smutty] fics, not just mine, please, stop and think a bit about the person behind the sentences. Just for one second. Because that person wants nothing much but you to notice how much work is put in the story you’re reading; that person is most of the time is full of insecurities, anxiety, all because they want to create the best story you’ve ever read (TM), and they hope their story will not be lost in a pile of indulgent pr0n. Even the smallest feedback makes a difference, it gives us, the authors, assurance we are doing something important here. 
> 
> Addendum: even sex can move the plot, and I’m gonna show you how it’s done ;)


	2. Tequila Sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Blacklist meets HBO :D  
> *Ressler speaks messed up Spanish on purpose ;)  
> *Nope, I haven't tried MDMA :'D

**August 13th, 2014, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, 04:20 PM**

“Red, behind you!”

_BANG!_

_BANG!_

The cartel soldiers' bodies drop on the warmed asphalt, the wind swaying empty Corona bottles next to their corpses, juice and milk cartons carried away. Chemical and paint odors mix with the strong, copper smell of blood and sun-heat leather—there’s a tannery not far from here.

Ressler, counting in his head, waits for a delay between the shots and dives behind a dumpster, pressing his body against it. Red-hot iron burns his skin, a long red mark left on his forearm, but he doesn’t move. The dumpster reeks of rotten fruits and bad meat, though it’s better to inhale such ambré than getting hit.

Distracting is strictly off-limits, but Ressler steals a side-glance at a neighboring dumpster. Reddington reloads his gun, well-groomed pudgy face glistening with sweat, shirt wrinkled under once pale-yellow— _It’s “champagne”, Agent Ressler_ —vest. The circumstances are far from favorable, but Ressler feels a twinge of the searing satisfaction— _walk a mile in my shoes, bitch. This isn’t your typical bourbon-chill on a private jet, huh?_

The shooting slows down, and Ressler, dropping to one knee, peeks out from his cover.

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

He misses a gunman in the window on the second floor—the bullet pierces his forearm, muscles ripped, all the way to the bone.

“F-u-uck!”

He dives behind the dumpster. A hard stare—Ressler hopes it is—bores into Reddington, but the Concierge doesn’t grace him with a look. A sudden movement—one doesn’t expect that from a man of his size—and Red takes out the shooter. Leaning against the metal side of the container, he racks the slide checking for ammo, and then drops the mag out. Ressler doesn’t need to see Red’s furrowed brows to make out it’s empty.

_Fucking A, f-u-c-k-i-n-g A._

No voices, no stomping. No doubt, not for long—the cartel soldiers know the streets better than two _gringos_ , one of whom is shot in the shoulder. They’ll expire faster than a Thanksgiving turkey.

His head pressed against the container, Ressler winces as it burns the back of his head—it hurts, but his arm hurts a thousand times worse. Biting his lip, he steals a glance at his arm— _the bullet went through?_ —but it doesn’t move, and he shouldn’t even pull a stunt like that without a painkiller.

“Fuck-fuck-fuck,” he hisses, trying to rip his shirt’s sleeve off with a healthy hand—at last, the time a damn piece of cloth they’ve forced him to pull on comes in handy. Blood keeps trickling between his fingers—a lot of it, much more than he’d want to. The seam won’t come apart, and Ressler, pulling the fabric, faints for a couple of seconds.

When he’s back, he sees Reddington before his eyes.

“Agent Ressler, let me,” Reddington says, smooth and calm like Ressler is a kid in a sandbox who can’t make the simplest sand pie. Ressler bites his lips not to throw a curse—there’s no time to argue; if he blacks out here, he’s dead.

He jerks his head in an approving nod, letting Reddington get closer. The bandage wraps his forearm tightly, sealing the blood flow for now. Reddington holds out a hand, but Ressler ignores the gesture, rising to his feet. Reddington snorts but doesn’t say anything, apparently, not willing to pick up a fight.

The shooting dies down—other agents distract the gunmen, buying time for both of them to get the hell out of here. Reddington goes first in front—not like Ressler lets him to, it’s just he doesn’t have any strength to fight. Red may do as he pleases—and catch a bullet, preferably, between his eyes.

The flow of his thoughts gets interrupted by a commotion. Perhaps, a stray cat, but his body goes faster than his mind—he pushes Reddington down in the sand, turns around, and, not aiming, pulls the trigger a couple of times.

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Three cartridges out, the gun gives a hollow snap—now it’s empty too. Behind the shattered windows of the vacant building, he registers a sound one won’t mix with anything else: a body falling on a rigid surface.

“Agent Ressler?” An impeccably polite Concierge’s voice slithers into his ears, and Ressler holds back the urge to jab the gun’s butt into his head, knocking him out.

“Don’t move,” Ressler barks, throwing now useless gun up. Amazing, but this time the Concierge complies—Ressler doesn’t hear the closing footsteps.

He covers fifteen feet to the building—an abandoned school or something like that—in no time, kicks the door open, and realizes there’s no one to shoot at. At the window opening, a boy—Mexican _chico_ —is lying on the floor in glass shatters, the pool of blood spread beneath him. Ressler stares at the boy blankly, thinking the training hasn’t gone to waste: three out of two bullets have hit the mark, jaw smashed, collarbone struck, although he’s been shooting with his left hand.

“Is everything alright?” Reddington’s voice reaches his ears. Ressler shakes his head and holsters his gun.

They need to go—but instead, Ressler approaches the boy and crouches beside him. Thoughts are sluggish: he needs to look for some ID on the corpse…Trembling hands, stained with blood, dirt, and gunpowder, are before his eyes.

_Who the hell is this?_

Then it comes to him—his own.

He lets out two short breaths and squats— _focus!_ —glancing over the body. A gray T-shirt, ripped jeans—a typical picture of the make-ends-meet family. _He must have hidden here when the shooting’s gone off..._

It takes Ressler a lot of willpower to stop his hands from shaking; he searches the boy's pockets: few pesos, coins, a bus ticket, _Chupa Chups_ lollipop... His fingers brush against something vaguely familiar. 

Taking his hand out of the boy’s pocket, Ressler examines the find. Nothing special. A tiny bag with colorful pills. He freezes, staring at them absently. The footsteps behind his back stir him up, and he, not quite getting why, puts the bag into his pocket.

“Yes… Yeah, I’m fine. Stand where you are.”

He decides not to explain anything to Reddington. It’s none of his business. An accident. He’s been doing a job, it happens.

“Donald, what is...” Reddington’s voice sounds somewhere close. “A civilian?”

“Yes.” The answer comes out hard; it seems he spits an iceberg out along with his guts.

“Have you searched him? Did he have anything on him? Cash, package?”

Ressler casts a glance on the _Chupa Chups_ , his body suddenly shuddering. He has to bite down on his fist not to make a sound.

“Donald, I asked you—”

“I’m not deaf, Reddington. Chupa Chups, ten pesos, and a bus ticket.”

“That’s it? The boy can be a cartel’s mule.” Reddington’s velvet voice coats him like molasses. It seems the bag torches his leg through his pants.

“He can’t,” Ressler says, louder than before.

“Why so sure?”

“He’s a _fucking child,_ Reddington!”

He turns around and nose-to-nose bumps into Reddington, who has already entered the premises. The pupils of the green eyes are dilated: adrenaline hasn’t tapered off yet. Barely smiling, Red raises the corners of his mouth, eyes locked on him.

“Of course. He’s just a child.”

* * *

**Same day, a** **strip-club** **_Silver Fox_ , Ciudad Juárez, 11:45 PM **

Ressler slaps his palm down the bar to get the bartender’s attention—a busty _Mexicana_ instantly lines up a row of five tequila shots for him. He downs them one after another, the burn scorching his throat like someone’s put chili there. He grabs nachos from the big plate, dips them into guacamole—nasty shit, but it masks the sourness, takes the throat burn out, and the world turns from shitty into…

Bearable.

He fumbles in his pockets for more pesos and throws crumpled bills on the bar, his right shoulder exploding in pain. Gesturing to the bartender he’s gonna come back, he makes his way through the crowd—it cheers _“Again! Again! Again!”_ to one of the strippers—and looks for the restroom. Noticing the “WC” sign on an inconspicuous door, he grabs the knob, pulling it on.

Checking if all stalls are empty, he makes a furtive glance in the direction of the restroom’s door and puts a hand in his pocket, drawing out a pen needle from his cargo shorts. He unbuttons the cuff, rolling up the sleeve. His forearm is wrapped in a bandage, but it doesn’t matter—he pulls the cap off, and the needle hits through the bandage. When a blessed numbness coats his arm, he pulls the needle out and tears off a paper towel to wipe his fingerprints from the surface—goofy, yes, but one can’t be too careful.

Crumpled up napkins unfold in slow-motion, their corners peaked at the ceiling, and Ressler grins foolishly. He has three more in his pocket: he’s stolen those from the medkit in the FBI’s safe house—they hardly would notice them gone.

When he’s back, the bar is not as packed with patrons as before—everyone’s gawking at the performance on the main stage. Ressler, leaning over a counter, slips a couple of bills into another _Mexicana's_ jeans back pocket.

 _“T-toda...p-pastar,”_ his tongue is twisting, stumbling over Spanish sounds, but the bartender grasps it perfectly, lining up the second row of shots. He reaches for his wallet, cautiously peeking into it—dollars only. A thought creeps into his mind— _better not tempt fate_ ; it’s not Washington—they’ll strip you down if you show them bucks.

He kills the last shot and wobbles towards the exit. At the door, casts a glance at the stage where the strippers are dancing, or, rather, convulsing off the beat. One of them is Keen’s twin— _as flat as Kansas, ha_ —and he chokes with laughter.

_Wasn’t she forced to babysit Reddington tonight? Nah, the old prick probably has asked for her…_

Ressler shakes his head: same shit, over and over: Keen brings up Reddington, and with Reddington comes…

“Fuck it,” Ressler pushes the door open.

The stifling heat loses its grip, and it gets easier to breathe. Leaning against the brick wall, he regrets he doesn’t smoke. A cheap stinker hangs in the air. Breathing it in, he remembers the pills: before his uniform has gone to laundry, he has put them into his wallet. He clenches his right fist—bad idea, the painkillers have worn off already. He knows why—he shouldn’t have mixed them and booze…

He looks left and right—no one’s around—and quickly draws out another pen needle. Done, throws it under his feet. He squashes it, plastic pieces to unrecognizable dust. Rough bricks are scratching his head—he doesn't give a damn _;_ what's more important, the pain in his shoulder's gone away.

He closes his eyelids.

A fatal mistake:

the boy's face flashes before his eyes. 

Ressler jerks, breaking it off, and slaps himself on the cheek with his left hand. _Drop it._ His right palm rests on a pocket where the wallet is, and in it… He hasn’t told anyone. Not Reddington, not Keen. No one. Five pills, tops. Not enough for a dope pusher. Maybe, he’s going to a party, maybe—a date…

The strip club’s door swings open, and a bunch of drunkees tumbles out into the street: two Mexicans dragging another one by the armpits, her knees scratching the asphalt. When she almost hits the ground, all three cackle—and Ressler joins them. One of the chicks turns around, jabbering in Spanish. Ressler wants to hang onto her words but changes his mind. _Whatever._ Meanwhile, the chicks go to the roadway, grab a cab, shove their friend onto the backseat, and fork out a couple of bills to the driver… 

They come back to the club’s doors, right at the spot he’s standing at. Their meaningful grins make it clear why.

Or, rather, for whom.

* * *

**Somewhere in the downtown of Ciudad Juárez, 01:00 AM  
**

They’re teaching him Spanish for “vagina” in the cab, howling with laughter at his drunk efforts. In an hour they get to a hotel in a goddamn shithole, but the chicks—Nina and Anna, if he’s gotten it right—swear by Mother Teresa it’s the most central of all the city centers.

Ressler barely checks in at the reception, as Anna and Nina grab him under his armpits and pull him to the elevators, their cackling echoing in the hall. Once in the suite, they go straight at the mini-bar while he occupies the bathroom. Ressler dreams he hears a thrilled _“Inglésa!”._ _Well, fuck it,_ he’s even glad, otherwise, they wouldn’t have left with him. He’s trying to make out their faces, but can’t—too much tequila.

When he pulls his shorts back up, his wallet drops out—it’s a miracle not in the toilet. It lands upside down; he picks it up without thinking. The wallet opens, and the bag with pills falls onto the floor. Cursing, he quickly tucks it back into his shirt’s pocket.

Exactly at this moment, the bathroom door thrusts open.

Ressler looks in the mirror at Nina— _or Anna?_ She leans against the door frame, a bottle in her hand. Her eyes locked on him, she brings it to her lips. Trickles roll down her chin and vanish under her tank-top, her pointed nipples pressing against the fabric. Ressler looks—rather at them than girl’s eyes—and she gets this look. She curves her perfectly painted lips, draws closer, and hands him the bottle. He accepts it—tequila again—and takes a small sip. She smooths her hands over his chest, tracing his muscles, her long nails scraping against the fabric. He lacks a second to stop her hands, his reaction time shit, and Nina, the bag squeezed between her fingers, bolts back to the room, shouting in Spanish. He doesn’t follow her, his body turned into a meat spacesuit, hulking and heavy; and the bag… _Fuck it, less of a problem._

Ressler doesn’t register who pulls him onto the couch. It happens too fast for his booze-fogged mind; Nina clasps his nape and forcefully opens his lips, and a tasteless pill rolls across his tongue. He could have spat it out, but Nina’s hand is in his shorts already, his reflexes slow as fuck.

_It’s just one pill, what can happen?_

The saliva is filling his mouth, and the pill slides down the root of his tongue into his throat.

Clarity, pure and spectacular hits him, all his senses amplified through a massive loudspeaker, сontrols turned up to the limit. Every thread of upholstery has depth and volume, hundreds of hairy hands tickling his back; he can tell _Reposado_ from _Añejo_ by smell when it’s pouring onto his chest; his nose makes out the top notes— _the fuck is this?_ —of the chick’s perfumes, not yet stifled by booze and sweat tartness; his boner is a freaking flag post on the Fourth July. It seems he can fuck the shit out of all the whores in Chihuahua and not break a sweat.

His brain works surprisingly clear—hell, he’d apply to _Ivory League_ right now… The word feels wrong, but there isn’t another, and Ressler quits all the linguistic quirks.

 _“Que pasa?”_ Ressler, tapping into his memory for his Spanish, asks Anna who has just walked in, and just to be sure points to his mouth.

The girls are laughing away, and he doesn’t get why. _Was it something I said...?_ He wants to repeat the question, but Nina covers his lips with hers, her hand sliding into his shorts, her fingers wrapped around his cock. Her nails scrape his skin, and Ressler rests his head back on the couch. At some point Anna shoves Nina aside, taking her place.

 _“Éxtasis,”_ Anna shakes out one more pill from the bag onto her palm, tilting her head back.

* * *

**Ciudad Juárez, 03:15 AM  
**

“Go!-Go!-Go!-Go!-Go!”

Shots. _One. Two. Three. Four. Five._ Laugh. Tumblers clink. An ass grinds against his cock. _Six. Seven. **Eightova.**_

_Wait, what?_

“Blow!-Blow!-Blow!-Blow!-Blow! Ye-e-e-ah!”

Lips on his lips, a tongue on his cock; a hookah glows in the dark, his orange eye is winking at them. Smoke, lots of smoke; it seems he has gone blind, lost in the haze of booze and naked bodies. A new kiss, or, rather, a sucking on his chapped, shisha-sore lips, another pill rolling on his dry tongue. He feels wholesome, made up of waves and pulsations, of the pure vibrating speed of sound, cutting through the air and space...

Nipples brush against his nipples, a tongue on the tip of his cock. The mouthpiece is pushed to his lips and then put into his mouth; he takes a deep draw— _cherry and peach?_ —and then licks the crushed, almost a buddy-like pill off someone’s ass. He takes another draw, deeper than before, throwing back his head…

**_a smashed jaw, the pool of clotted blood on the broken stones—and the smell of gunpowder and smoke_ **

_(ha-ha-ha)_

He catches a breath when someone takes him into his mouth. He winds his fingers into wiry black hair, thrusting deeper, but—

_**shattered glass, Chupa Chups on the floor, the blood pool is reaching the edge of his shoes.** _

_Fuck._

He stares at the ceiling, at the _sh... ch… chand… Fuck it._ Voices send fake crystals into a quivering, but he doesn’t hear them, those fizzing like static on comms.

Another draw of the hookah, his fingers awkwardly stroking the hair either one whore or another sucking him off in turns. One of them, remembering his move earlier, takes him into her throat so deep his dick rams against her glands.

Bus ticket.

Blood-stained gray T-shirt.

Ripped sneakers.

Glass breaking.

Struck collarbone.

Slivers of glass in the hair.

Face smudged with soot.

_Bitch._

Giving no shit if she gags or not, he fucks someone in the mouth— _Nina or Anna?_ —almost hammering into her throat, hair twisting in his fist. _Faster, faster, faster._ Someone cries out; the pictures are dissolving like sugar in water—he realizes he’s watching one of the chicks fingering herself, her glazed eyes fixed on him. 

* * *

**Ciudad Juárez, 05:45 AM**

Tequila. Bourbon. Mezcal. Tequila. Tequila again. Mezcal.

The seventh shot—and Ressler smashes the glass against the wall; it splinters, shimmering in the electric light. They’ve run out of the air a long time ago, whips of suffocating thick smoke hanging around the room. Anna— _or is it Nina?_ —kills the fifth shot and almost instantly pukes it up on a carpet.

Nina— _Anna?_ —half-hollers, half-horselaughs, and hits the bottle, gulping the bourbon boldly.

Anna-Nina, covering her mouth, slams the window open and bends over the windowsill.

Ressler looks at the rounded ass with a red hand-print left on it, thinking she’s gotten a firm butt— _but her vagina could have been tighter_ —while she’s puking her guts out from the second floor. He can’t stifle a laugh and giggles, slipping off the couch. His hands fumble around the wet— _when?_ —carpet, looking for booze.

A bottle is pulled away from his hands, he's pushed onto his back, straddled. Someone presses on his jaw, opening his mouth wide to put another pill, and bourbon’s warmth trickles down his throat.

His eyelids heavy, he drifts into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REGRET NOTHING  
> *  
> A moment of silence for the +18 scenes we could have had if TBL wasn't such a cherry.


	3. All Falls Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, ugh. I hope someone is still interested in this version of Ressler—f***ed up, dark, and dangerous. 
> 
> [Spoiler - no one is, whom am I kiddin']

**October 3rd, 2017,** **Massachusetts Avenue,** **Washington D.C.,** **02:00 PM**

He has no idea how much time has passed as he is sitting here, on the curb of the sidewalk, leaning against a dog-pissed lamppost. People are passing him by; no one cares about him like he’s an empty spot, set-in stain at the very heart of Dupont Circle. Heels click against the asphalt; someone’s stick umbrella goes rap-rapping on the sidewalk as they wait for their bus at the bus stop; a child who has lost his mother is whining and wailing. The afternoon sun sizzles Ressler's skin—it’s gonna burn his freckles through—and he clasps his head with hands, staring blankly at the storm drain grates between his shoes.

_“Your badge.”_

The key chain stings. He throws it down; it clanks, stuck between the grates. Ressler springs up and tramples the keyring into the narrow opening until the grate dangerously bends under the hits.

_“And your service weapon.”_

Kicking an empty coffee cup away with the toe of his shoe, he rises to his feet and walks down the sidewalk. He shoulders someone aside. _Fuck it._ Store windows with rags and duds blend into a kaleidoscopic spot; the smell of sour coffee beans and the revolting stench from a garbage truck parked nearby makes him sick. A hopper swallows the garbage with a clang, emptying the trash into the truck's stinky bottom.

_Just like you, huh?_

Ressler brings his fist to his mouth not to throw up.

Something clicks in his brain, and he, his fingers gripping into the box, walks up to the garbage truck. He throws the box as high as he can. The lid falls off, papers raining into the compactor, sinking in waste—he’s never been a greenpeacer, and not going to be one now.

“Hey! Whada' hell, man?!!” The driver bawls, sticking out from the truck’s window, but Ressler gives him the middle finger and walks away. The python-like grip of the knot of his tie is suffocating, and he pulls the knot down.

_“Good morning, Agent Ressler.”_

_“Agent Ressler, I don’t like your attitude.”_

_“And this is all you’re capable of, Agent Ressler?”_

_“It never occurred to me the FBI is in the middle of an HR crisis. That’s probably the reason they have hired you, Agent Ressler.”_

_“Reading, of course, isn’t your area of interest. Is there anything you are interested in at all?”_

_“Tell, me, are you indeed such a moron, or they teach you at Quantico? If they do, you must have aced the exam.”_

_“These are the basics, Agent Ressler. How could you not know them?”_

_“In my days the agents were picked by their brains, not muscles. O tempora, o mores!”_

_“Your moral compass is not my concern, Agent Ressler. Look at the world from a different angle if you want to do your job.”_

_“You look and smell like a cop. The moment you open your mouth and hay flies out, we’re both dead.”_

_“This is my world, and you are a tourist.”_

Reddington. Grinning. Cooper with the resignation. They look at him, their lips twisted in a smirk. Look at the miserable, mediocre agent who in five years— _five fucking years_ —hasn’t made it anywhere. Even Reddington has surrendered on his own.

 _Reddington. It’s all Reddington. Yes, he. He knows. But how?_ There is nothing on him—he’s made sure of that; a room and the rental are registered on the fake ID, the USB drive is hidden in Takoma Park, calls from a burner… He’s been careful, damn it. _But what if..._

The thought turns up unexpectedly, surfacing from his subconsciousness.

 _Vargas._ How come it occurs to him just now?

Ressler halts, almost crashing into the cart with freshly baked pretzels, and turns around, looking for the subway sign.

* * *

**Apt. “9B”, 14 Connecticut-Ave, NW, Washington, D.C., 05:18 pm**

His own place greets him with a broken AC and stuffiness. Slamming the door shut, he tosses the keys on the drawer. He is pacing across the living room; he can’t sit, can’t cool down, just ambling from the room into the room. On his way back from the kitchen, he picks an unfinished _Budweiser_ from the drawer and guzzles it, in a second realizing he’d better not to—the flat beer tastes like piss. He spits right on the floor, squeezing the can in his fist until it collapses. He throws it—the can rolls into the corner, and he, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, freezes at last.

And then springs in motion again.

On his way to the bathroom, he pulls his coat off, stumbling over discarded shoes. The antidepressants are knocked off the shelves when he jerks at the drawer's handle. A cap from one of the containers loosens. As he steps on the white pills scattered on the floor, he reaches for a black container. Shaking a pill into his palm he instantly swallows it, and then, without hesitation, swallows two more.

He doesn’t put the container back.

_Who fucking cares anyway?  
_

And it stays laying under the tub.

He stares at the metal ring of a sink’s drain, his fingers digging into the sink’s edges. His hands act on autopilot. The faucet on, he puts his palms under the pouring water and splashes it onto his face. It sobers him up.

_Relax._

_Think._

It’s early. _Better wait for the evening. Yeah, tonight._ Tonight he'll visit her, and the bitch’s gonna tell him everything. Everything he wants to know. _  
_

No, he won’t make it till the evening.

Ressler takes a new container. Its cap twists off, he shakes a pile of pills into his palm and puts them into his mouth. The pills don’t go down at once, so he flips a toothbrush holder down, its contents plummeting into the sink, and fills it with water. Coming back into the living room, he flops on the torn couch and tilts his head back, closing his eyes.

Nothing happens. Not in five minutes, ten, twenty. It gets _worse._ He is this close to smashing a cheap LCD with a coffee table.

He lies down.

Nothing.

_Fuck, you could’ve killed an elephant with this fix, what the hell?_

Trembling distracts him, and he shifts his gaze onto his palms to see his phalanges flutter like hysterical moths over the flames.

He doesn’t think twice; springing off the couch, he heads into the kitchen. 

Fetching a stool, he climbs upon it, his legs wobbly, and reaches for the vent. The grate slides off easily, and a second later he fumbles for a box inside. In it—college photos, Academy, SWAT. As he’s brushing his fingers across the faded pictures’ borders, his mind is flooded with memories: a person he’s dreamed to be; his aspirations, hopes, dreams… 

_No, fuck it all._

The box falls to the floor with a thump. _Whatever._ He fumbles around further. _Yeah, this is it. What he deserves. For all these fucking years on the job._ Grabbing the paper bag, Ressler puts the vent grate back and jumps off the stool. His Swiss Army knife, a reminder of his SWAT years, fallen out from the box, draws his attention. He picks it up, and, not really knowing why, puts it into his pocket.

Back into the bedroom, he crumples his jacket up and throws it onto the floor; he does the same with his shirt, ripping a few buttons off it. _That was a good one,_ he thinks with a pang of regret.

_Does it fucking matter?! You were rolled off like a cock rubber fucking a cheap whore, and you weep over shitty threads._

With his jeans and hoodie on, Ressler, hiding the paper bag into a wide front hoodie pocket, crosses the room in a couple of strides. In the hallway, he changes into sneakers, straightens up, and takes the keys.

He slams the door shut and strides to the elevators. The addresses he’s seen hundreds of times in the reports keep flashing before his eyes over and over.

* * *

**Washington, D.C., abandoned apartments on Stadium-Armory Station, 07:05 pm**

“How much?”

“Thirty.”

He hesitates. The pusher— _damn sucker, he’s no more than sixteen_ —sees that and waves a ziplock bag in his face.

“Yo, first free.”

Ressler raises a brow, but the kid hands him the bag.

“No kidding?”

“‘Tiz black fucking Friday,” the pusher cackles, a joint pressed between his teeth.

An overly sweet scent caresses his nostrils, and Ressler, inhaling, realizes he doesn’t wrinkle up his face a lick. Quite the opposite—the scent makes him so horny he’s ready to whine like a bitch in heat.

Ressler, handing the cash to the pusher, adjusts his hood, walking away in a hurry. Not far—diving into the nearest alley, he looks back and then shoves his hand into the pocket, taking one of three ziplock bags.

Some part of his mind, the part which has brought him into _F-B-fucking-I,_ its voice weak, wonders, _is that what he wants?_

He looks at the bag.

The white granules shimmer in the lamppost’s light.

_Yes._

He hastily sticks two fingers into the bag, wiggling them in cocaine. As a pro—because he’s seen it hundreds, no, thousands of times, but never, ever he thought...—he rubs the powder on his gums, nostrils, and snorts.

In the first couple of seconds, nothing happens. He’s almost considering to turn back and beat the shit out of the pusher, as the fix kicks in. He takes a deep breath, each air molecule is rolling on his tongue; his nose is burning, and he sneezes, wiping it with his sleeve.

His fingertips sting, but it’s rather a pleasant feeling, and the warmth wraps him in. It feels like taking a bath at the fucking large jacuzzi, and there’s nothing but the eternity of not-doing-a-damn-thing. Eternity, where he is no one's bitch anymore...

He opens his eyes, and his disheveled thoughts line up like soldiers on Veterans Day.

Yeah, now he knows exactly what to do.

* * *

**Washington, D.C., 16th Street, NW, Downtown, 10:45 pm**

He knows Vargas’ address better than the Bill of Rights—all the hours he has kept tabs on this _bitch’s son_ are finally paid off. Hands in pockets, Ressler stomps his foot anxiously, waiting for somebody to come out from the building. In half an hour the luck smiles upon him, and he, like a shadow, slips into the hallway. The rent here is definitely out of his budget; he’s lucky there’s no concierge around. There is a security cam, though.

Ressler rushes up the stairs, and soon enough he is on the tenth floor. Hands on his bent knees, he’s catching his breath. He’s pushing back the thought that three years ago he wouldn’t have broken a sweat from such a light exercise. He calms his chest, takes a deep breath, and looks for Vargas’ apartment. Found, he knocks with his fist at the door, ignoring a fancy bell to his right.

The door immediately opens.

“Honey, you forg—”

Vargas barely lets a squeal as he slips swiftly into the doorway; he clamps his palm over her mouth, pressing her against the wall.

“Look. Look at me, I said,”—he grabs a clump of her hair, forcing her to look at a white arched doorway leading to the rest of the apartment.—“Anyone’s in?”

Vargas shakes her head,—as violently as she can, considering her current condition—and Ressler jerks it up, so she would face him. He looks in her eyes—they’re tearing up. But he gives no fucks about it. _Not a single one._

He pulls a knife out of his pocket and puts it to her throat.

“Mmmm!!! Mmmm!!!”

“Shut up.”

Vargas’ back of the head hits the wall. His palm, gagging her, is getting wet and sticky. Isabella stops twitching, and, it seems, freezes.

“Good.” He lowers his voice, whispering, although it’s pointless; judging by the walls, they’re much more soundproof than at his place when he’s hearing someone is banging a whore three apartments away.

“I’ll take my hand off your mouth, but if you scream or try to hit me,”—he squeezes her saggy cheeks, feeling the jawbones under his fingers—“you’ll never see your son. Never, you hear me?” The tip of his nose almost brushes up hers as he pierces into her tear-swollen blue eyes. “Every corner, every den… I know them all, Bella. Every single one of them. Blink twice if you understand.”

She looks at him and blinks—not two times, four. It makes him smile. The corners of his mouth split aside as if someone widens them with the palate expander. For a couple of seconds he doesn’t recognize himself— _what have you become, Ressler?_ —but then he slowly puts his palm off Vargas’ mouth. She is statue-like still, squeezing herself close to the wall.

He points at the arched doorway with his knife.

“Nice and easy, so I could see you.”

Vargas, stumbling, almost falls. Pushing her hands against the floor, she props herself up. Ressler follows her to a spacious living room, three times bigger than his office,— _his old office_ —and, noticing the couch, sprawls out on it like it’s his own. He glances at the windows, smirking—the drapes are shut.

Isabella eases herself into the armchair in front of him, but he, with an accustomed knife movement, points at the spot beside him. He isn’t a moron, after all. She is the FBI’s Chief Medical Officer, and the agent, too. She’s been caught off guard. But if he gives her time to get a grip of herself, his ass will land in a hell of trouble. A knife or a gun isn’t an issue, but if she sticks him in the neck with a syringe, he’s done, _adios._

Vargas presses herself closer to the couch armrest, but Ressler grabs her elbow and pulls her towards him.

“Now we’re talking.” Squeezing her elbow, he pushes the tip of his knife under her chin. She shifts her gaze to the blade and he reads an unspoken question in her eyes: _is that really necessary?_

“Insurance. To make sure you’re not lying. So,”—the blade is pressed hard against her skin, drawing a drop of blood, and Vargas squints—“Director Cooper. Where he got my real test?”

She inhales deeply, and under her sheer robe, he notices her breasts lift up and down as she breathes. In his pants his dick gets sore. _Not a good time, damn it._

Vargas, unaware, gabbles:

“IswearIdidn’ttellanything!”

“Not impressed,” Ressler clips, pressing the blade into her chin harder than before.

“Butitsthet-truth!”

“You’re lying.”

“I’mnot! I’m not, I swear to God!”

Her falsetto, a battleship’s foghorn, screeches in his ears. Ressler darts forward like a snake striking its prey, his fingers fastening around Vargas’ throat. He doesn’t think, his brain’s on autopilot; Vargas’ skin, dry and wrinkled, is shrinking under his fingers. Her eyes are opened wide, mouth half-open, a gurgling wheeze mixed with muffled hiss escapes her throat like someone has sewn only a half of her mouth. Ressler stifles a laugh, imagining this. A moment after he stops himself.

Vargas doesn’t breathe anymore.

His euphoria gone, Ressler yanks his hand away. Thoughts, hysterical butterflies, are dangling around his skull box, but the very first one— _I did it, I killed her_ —is flashing before his eyes. He stares at the closed eyelids, half-open mouth, naked, motionless breasts, and clutches his head.

_Fucking-shit-fucking-shit!_

From the corner of his eye, he registers a movement; his reaction time is slow as ever: Vargas aims for his Adam’s apple, but misses, and her fist lands on his chin.

His mouth is filled with blood, and the familiar stickiness coats his tongue.

“Youfuckingbitch!” Ressler yells and pulls Vargas with him, pinning her against the couch. Her knee slams into his stomach, right into the solar plexus, and he falls onto the coffee table. For five seconds he’s disoriented. The skin on his cheeks and forehead stings like he’s put his head into a beehive, but Ressler, squinting at the blurred white spot—Vargas running away—forces himself to stand up.

If she runs out the door—he’s fucked.

She hasn’t made it far. He yanks Vargas at her elbow; she opens her mouth to scream, but this time he’s ready—on pure instinct he plunges the knife between her ribs. His fingers slide across the knife’s handle, sticky with blood, and he, not knowing why, twists it.

Vargas doesn’t scream—she gasps for air, her limp body plummeting on him, and together they fall to the floor.

Shoving Vargas’ body off himself, Ressler rises to his feet. On the wall in front of him—smudged crimson strokes. Crouching over the body— _a habit_ —he puts two fingers on Vargas’ jugular, although a spreading dark-red spot on her breasts speaks for itself.

Strange, but this time he isn’t panic-stricken. Quite the contrary: his mind switches into an enhanced mode, and confused _“Shit-shit-oh-shit”_ changes into _“Don’t fuss, think”._

Ressler plops into an armchair, and his hand reaches for the coke on its own accord. He licks his gums, feeling the granules melt on the tip of his tongue. He shudders, hides the ziplock bag into his pocket, and then he looks at— _the crime scene_ —Vargas.

 _It looks bad. Bad and too obvious._ His eyes wander around the room, and he notices a shelf with a row of photographs. On one of them, with palm trees and the ocean in the background, Vargas is with her son.

Ressler heads into the kitchen. He doesn’t know where Vargas keeps the cleaning supplies, so he halts at the doorway, overwhelmed by the number of kitchen cabinets.

_Fuck it._

Yanking a towel off the hanger, he wraps his hand with it not to leave the prints and goes through the cabinets: pots, dishes, pans, dishwasher. _No, this doesn’t cut it…_ Finally, he finds what he's looking for under the sink: the cleaning supplies and a pack of rubber gloves. Ressler pulls it out and takes a pair.

_Here we go._

First of all—prints. He quickly, yet thoroughly wipes everything he’s touched—a doorknob, couch, knife’s handle, Vargas’ neck. Next, throwing the cloth into the trash, he opens the fridge. Hell, pizza once a day feels like a holiday for him, and here is enough grub to feed a whole damn FBI unit. An assortment of expensive moldy cheese and grapes, a salad made with the vegetables unknown to him, and a cured ham wrapped in plastic with an _Italian_ label—Ressler throws it into the trash too. 

He twists the cap off the juice, takes a gulp, and then wipes the place with his sleeve his lips have just touched. Throwing away the juice, he approaches the dinner table, pulling the table cloth off. Five minutes, and even Gordon Ramsey won’t set a foot in here.

Satisfied by the chaos he’s just caused, Ressler goes back to the living room where Vargas lies. It takes him more time to create an illusion that Vargas’ stoned son has lashed out at her; he even spills some coke on here and there to sell it to the cops— _to hell with it._

Ressler’s gaze hangs onto the dirty footprints on the floor,— _damn weather!_ —and he goes into the hallway. Opening the closet, he crouches down to see the shoes among colorful coats and jackets. He pulls a pair of worn-out sneakers— _tight, damn it!_ —and changes into them, his heels slipping out from the sneakers.

Coming back into the kitchen to take a wet cloth, he wipes the parquet, and then checks the apartment again. His sneakers’ soles thoroughly wiped off, Ressler, finding a shopping bag in the closet, leaves.

He halts on the first step and glances down the stairs. The elevator’s quiet, and it plays into his hands. On foot he goes two floors down, changes into his own footwear, tosses the cloth, gloves, and sneakers into the shopping bag, and puts the hood on.

Out, he cautiously looks around, but it seems, there’s nothing to worry about: everyone is either hanging out at this late hour or watching the TV which bawls out the late news so loud one can hear it in the next building.

“Hey, mister! Hey!”

Ressler mutters a curse. Thank God the lamppost’s light doesn’t fall onto him.

“You living here?”

Ressler squints and sees a puny old man. _Freaking activist, why the hell he’s even here?_

“Got the wrong building,” his voice sounds confident like it’s the way it’s been. “I was checking up on a guy for my friend, John, he rents a place to him in this neighborhood...You know how it is.” 

The seconds are dragged slow, like bubblegum, and Ressler considers the options where to hide the corpse if it comes to that. He clutches the shopping bag in his hand.

The old man stares at him one last time, trying to make out his features.

“I’m sorry. Can’t be cautious enough, right?” he mumbles an apology.

“Sure. Good night.”

“You too.”

The stranger leaves, and Ressler, sniffling, strides to the curb. His heart is pounding like someone’s drumming it out. _Inhale-exhale. Inhale. Exhale._ Four blocks after he gets rid of the evidence, and then goes to an empty bus stop.

He flops onto the narrow seat, the glass panel cooling the back of his head. His butt is sore from rigid plastic, but he doesn’t care. He puts both of his hands into his hoodie’s front pocket and stares blankly at the night club ad.

His hands act on autopilot: open, dig down, rub.

One of the ad girls, her thighs wrapped in a mini-skirt, looks right at him, blowing a kiss with her painted lips.

Ressler, wiping his nose, spits on the ground, and then fixes his gaze at the girl.

_“Do you even know anything about women, Donald? You will hardly manage one, not mentioning two.”_

It triggers memories, pieces of them scattered over his brain.

**Reddington is grinning**

**the boy, his jaw smashed; intense gaze**

**“Have you found anything?”**

**“Perhaps, a cartel’s mule.”**

**stoned hookers cackling in laughter and crying ‘Éxtasis’**

**The Concierge walking out from the glass door, a short Mexican escorting him, her hand under his arm.**

_“Donald, this is Anna. Anna, Donald.”_

**hazel eyes are fixed on him as if absorbing his features to the tiniest detail**

**same eyes stare at him in a halo of glaucous smoke**

**supple arms dropping a pill on his tongue…**

Ressler slams his fist into the ad box, right at the smirking dumb-ass DJ.

 _Fucking Reddington! He knew everything! He set it all up, paid the hooker from the agency… That’s why her face looked familiar! It’s all on him, yeah, him. Reddington hooked him up with dope and sold him out to Cooper!_ If it wasn’t for Reddington, no one would’ve fired him from the FBI, if it wasn’t for him, he’d have never found those pills! He’d have been clean, damn it! _Yes, him, it’s all him…_

_It was him from the very beginning! He dragged the task force into fucking Mexico, into this shithole of Ciudad Juárez!_

Ressler clenches his fists.

If it wasn’t for Reddington, he’d have had everything. An ungrateful, but still a job; a job, he’s doing better than all of them, damn it! _Yeah, much better than them. Better than fucking Keen, better than anyone else._

He’s had everything. Everything before Reddington surrendered himself, and their task force began to shuffle from state to state, from continent to continent, giving zero fucks about jurisdiction, rules, agents…

_Reddington._

He will pay. For everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dark!Ressler is one of my kinks. I have no doubts that Diego would've delivered it flawlessly.
> 
> Stay tuned for more (if you bear to wait for updates for another half a year, lol), chapter four is gonna be full of resslington because Don can't take the last step into the dark without Red.


	4. Overdose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO sorry it took so long.  
> *  
> I know no one needs this ololol because it's not your usual sappy-fluffy--whatever-ship-cooing, but here we are.  
> *  
> !ATTENTION!  
> 18+, GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE AND TONS OF DISTURBING SHIT. YOU MUST BE ABOVE 18 TO READ IT.  
> *  
> Gwyllt, I love you. I would be nothing without you. You're breathtaking, amazing, brilliant, inspiring, and a great friend.  
> \-----  
> Arjuk! Aetu malana! - Please, give me some money! (Arabic)  
> Cavalero - a gentleman or cavalier  
> Calavera - an ornately decorated representation of a skull, often featuring flowers, animals, and other decorations.

**Somewhere in Washington, D.C., 01:10 AM**

A ribbon of square cloned boxes is stretching from a bus’s scratched window. It’s empty inside and it’s hard to breathe; beads of sweat drop off his forehead, tickling his neck. Hands in his hoodie’s pockets, Ressler kneads a bag with the coke. His eyes hang onto one of the dummies in a dim shop window: the dummy's wrapped into a light three-piece suit and a hat. Reddington _. Fucking_ _Reddington._ The name brings a question: _how to find him?_

Discreetly spitting on the floor, Ressler taps his foot. Restaurants and bars float along with him, but he doesn’t give a damn: _Where’s fucking Reddington?!_ This only thought is going round and round in his head like a broken record. Sure thing, he is somewhere, surrounded with top-notch security, maybe, at the safe house. One can’t just walk in there, and even if one could, сhances are the guards will shove him back into the hole he’s crawled from. 

_Better be smart about this._

The bus stops at an intersection. Ressler casts a glance at a traffic light—still red. A diner ad on the building to his right catches his attention. A booby chick with hamburgers and _Pepsi_ blinks at him from the light-box. He is hungry—he’d tuck in an elephant now—but Ressler ignores the growling in his stomach, sniffing.

The red changes into green and the bus starts moving. _At last, fuck._ Ressler unintentionally holds his stare at another ad, this time a sporting gear. One of the chicks is Keen’s twin, and he’s сracking up, remembering Keen screwing things up when sparring in the gym. _Who has even hired her?_

 _Keen!_ This is it. Keen definitely knows how to get in touch with Red. _Nah, surely, the bitch knows it all._

Staring at the bus route map, Ressler is trying to figure out where he is now. Better not ask the driver. _Fuck. Think, damn it._ Yeah, now he gets it. Three more stops, and then on foot...

Once he's gotten off the bus, he finds the building Keen lives in in no time. Unlike his, Keen’s apartment is ten minutes' walk from the subway—and she is always late. It’s a damn shame the building’s front door gives up so easy—there’s a rock between it and a doorjamb.

Ressler slips inside and goes up the stairs: the fourth floor. Glancing side to side, he approaches a familiar door and presses the doorbell button. Three times after he hears the movement on the other side.

“Who is it?” the voice he knows too well, asks.

“Ressler. Need to talk.”

The door flings open in an instant. Keen stares at him as he reads mother-hen worry on her face.

“Ressler? You… You alright?”

He hides his shaky hands in pockets, slowly, so Keen would notice. She might even think he’s nervous—and that’s fine with him.

“Not really. May I come in?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

Following Keen through the hallway, he takes off his hood. The living room smells of paint. Yeah, cozier than his place. New furniture, freshly painted, pale rose walls, squeaky clean parquet. Pots with green leaves, some sports gear in the corner: a large red gym ball, same shade yoga mat, and a treadmill.

Not waiting for an invitation, Ressler flops onto the couch, resisting an urge to put his feet on a shiny-blind coffee table. He’s tired as fuck—he has realized it just now.

“You want something?” Keen asks, half-curious, half-concerned.

“Nah,”—the question passes him by; he’s not making an effort to listen—“no need.”

She sits into the armchair and looks at him, pity in her eyes—like he is a loser. He’s annoyed by this for an instant, but then it comes to him: _like_ a loser? He _is_ one. Fucked this all up.

“You wanted to talk about something,” Keen prompts.

“Um...Yeah,” Ressler tries to scramble his thoughts together. “I need Reddington.”

Keen raises her brow, her face getting even more stupid than before like she is drugged… Or has a bad face-lift.

“You’re not in the task force anymore.”

_A fucking-A observation._

He wishes he could punch her in the face, his knuckles burning as he thinks of it. He brushes the thought away _. Focus, fuck._ A priest at a funeral would have died from envy if he saw his mournful face. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out an empty coke bag. He raises his eyes on her—red, always red if he hasn’t used the eye drops… And they’re left at home. Quivering shoulders—no biggie, his whole body’s trembling now—and a bitter sigh.

“Ressler…”

Her worrisome voice sounds so quiet, his ears roll up from an effort he makes. _Bought it._

“I need help,” his voice stiff, Ressler frowns. Right off the Broadway. “I don’t know where else to go… They think I’m—You know—Today was a mess—I’m so… ashamed...”

For a fraction of a second, he’s seized by fear. _Was_ _it way too much? What if she figures it out...?_ But Keen’s dopey face is still flat—even if he asks for Red’s number now, she will barely suspect a thing.

“Call Cooper. Please, Liz. I… I need to talk to him. Alone. I wanna explain…”

“Yes. Yes, let me… Wait a sec,” she springs up off her armchair.

When Keen’s back disappears behind the door, Ressler silently rises from the couch and follows her. He’s right: she has gone to the bedroom. _What a stupid idiot._ He looks at her, going through the desk drawer.

Noiselessly, like a cat, breathing as quietly as possible, he enters the room. Keen is looking for her cell and doesn’t notice him. A scent of salty popcorn and herbal soap interrupts his thoughts. A shag rug feels like a cat’s fur under his feet, muting his steps, and Ressler, growing bolder, takes two precise strides forward.

His hoodie almost touches Keen’s back, and she shudders, straightening up. She has a grip on her cell—the latest flagship smartphone. _Of course, it is._

“Ressler...?”

He takes another step forward and presses himself against her. His hands trace her shoulders, down to up while he's contemplating how to get that damn cell. He needs no fucking Cooper, he needs someone else… He is sifting through thoughts, throwing away one after another: not a single bright idea how to change Cooper for Red. If only he chose the right words…

“Donald…”

His palms lie flat on her tensed shoulders. He squeezes them a little; it works—she relaxes, and Ressler smirks to himself. _Underfucked, aren’t you, Keen?_

She makes a feeble effort to move—she can't—she's rooted to the spot when his right hand strokes her neck. As his cheek brushes against hers, Ressler stifles a cackle. _What a pathetic fool._ She isn’t even his type. Someone a tad smarter would have gotten it, and the trick wouldn’t have worked… But it’s a dumb-idiot-Keen for you.

He casts a glance at the phone.

_She needs to die._

The thought pops in unexpectedly—so logical, so right—and Ressler wonders: how come it hasn’t occurred to him earlier? He’s dealt with one problem this way, so how Keen is different?

Keen’s breathing becomes ragged when he lays his palm under her chin. He puts an arm around her, and she gives in to him.

_Now._

Keen doesn’t stand a chance: he kicks her in the calf, grabs her head with both hands, sharply twisting it to the right. She only lets a squeak, throwing her hands up, and then collapses to the floor.

He checks for a pulse.

_Dead._

Ressler pulls a cell from her grip, unclasping her clenched fingers. He opens a sheet-size contact list: _“Abercrombie”, “Abby”, “Adam”_ … In one swipe he gets to the _“R”_ … And finds nothing like _“Reddington”_ or _“Raymond”._

Anger is flowing through him. _Why right-fucking-now Keen ISN’T the stupid bitch she usually is?!_ He tosses the cell away. Even if there’s Reddington’s phone number, he won’t find it in a million years.

Ressler paces up and down, the realization hitting him in the head like a thrown baseball.

The burner.

Fuck, why he’s so dumb?! Everyone at the task force has one; he's had one too. A dummy phone number to keep in touch with Reddington, changed after every call made.

He lifts his head, his eyes ticking around the room.

_Where this bitch'd keep it?…_

A bedside drawer. The stupid idiot could never cover her tracks, hide important papers and things. He jerks the drawer open, its contents falling onto the floor: a comb, a box of pads, nail scissors, and—his heart skips a beat—a cheap black flip phone.

Ressler leans down, picking it up. He flips it up, two clicks—he finds _“Outcoming Calls”._ There—the only contact _“Nick’s Pizza”. So_ obvious and dumb… Back to the main menu, he clicks the _“New Message”._ After some thought, Ressler’s fingers fly over the keyboard, and the screen flickers:

 **“Need 2 meet. Now. L.”** He almost presses _“Send”,_ but doesn’t do it—he notices Keen’s smartphone. He’d bet “Nick’s Pizza _”_ is there too.

No. No unnecessary attention, remember?

Ressler licks his lips and clenches his fingers. _Which phone Keen’d send it? Work? Personal?_ The rules require her to call from a work one, but it’s a dumbass-Keen for you…

 _Work… Personal… Work… Personal… Work._ A short message sores his eyes, and Ressler flips the burner off. _Nick’s Pizza, Nicks’s Pizza…_

_Nick’s Pizza. C’mon, it’s Keen._

The burner phone is thrown away, and Ressler picks up a shiny white smartphone. Its screen is scratched, but responds to taps—and Ressler finds a letter _“N”_ on the contact list. _“Nick’s Pizza”_ is followed by _“Nico from Tinder”_. An inappropriate cackle gurgles in his throat: Keen and _Tinder!_ The guys at the office won’t believe it if he tells them… Too bad he won’t.

He texts the same message: **“Need 2 meet. Now.”** And hits _“Send”._

The answer takes too long. Ressler has already lost it when the phone explodes with a ringtone: an incoming call. He almost drops the phone: this piece of plastic shit won’t make it after the second fall. He taps an _“Ignore”_ button, though the ring keeps thundering in his ears, rolling in his head from one ear to another.

_Fuck. Alright. Think. Think._

His fingers fly over the screen, typing. **“Can’t. Found a bug. Not FBI.”**

**“I’ll send a car.”**

_Fucking shit!_

Ressler bites his lips: the more excuses, the more suspicious it gets… He’s lucky Keen has been far from an exemplary agent. It should work.

**“No. Dangerous. Mb ambush. 10 min. Fountain, Pershing Park.”**

**“OK.”**

Wiping the sweat off his forehead, Ressler hides the phone in his pocket. His eyes roam around the room and lock on Keen’s wide-open, dead eyes. The look repels him, and he leans down, reaching out to close them. He yanks his hand back—this narrows a circle of suspects, makes it intimate.

His body’s shaking— _not the right time, fuck_ —like he’s just out from the freezer. Ressler straightens up and goes to the desk.

Pulling out the coke, he, on autopilot, pours out a tiny bump on the desk. A plastic card sticking out of a cardholder draws his attention. Two scoops of a card—and he gets a line. Not perfect, but it'll do for a first-timer. Fumbling for a note in his pocket, he smooths a sawbuck out and rolls it up. He puts the rolled bill to the line and snorts it; a cough seizes his throat, his eyes teary—first time’s a bitch. And he hasn’t even snorted half of it.

He breaths in and out, hoping to distract himself, his eyes roaming around the room. A bedside drawer, not closed properly, catches his eye. Pulling the edge of the blanket off the bed, Ressler, wrapping the drawer’s handle, pulls it on. Among the stack of papers, there's a black dim shape of the gun’s grip. _Uh-oh, the rules require a gun to be locked up in a safe._ One never knows what’s gonna happen. He tucks the gun behind the belt of his jeans and goes back to the desk.

Ressler does the last line again—and it disappears, leaving indistinguishable crumbs. Licking his finger, he rubs it at the surface, picking the leftovers up, and licks the finger again—it’s too good not to… Then he scans the room: _alright, what do we have in here?…_

He gets it done much faster than at Vargas’: disheveled books, rumpled bed, broken flower pot, and an open window.

Wiping his prints off, Ressler leaves the room, not even looking at Keen.

* * *

The darkness of the alley disguises his shape, swallowing him in its depths. He pulls the coke out of his pocket again and slowly zips a transparent bag open, his hands trembling with anticipation. Stick the fingers, wiggle, rub. Stick, wiggle, rub. The powder is melting: weightless granules dissolve on the sore gums’ tissue, causing a pleasant sting.

It feels _good_ —his back pressed against the wall, he takes a deep breath, inhaling the cool night air, its taste rolling on his tongue.

It feels _damn good_ —it seems the wind picks him up, sweeping beyond the borders of reality, beyond the borders of a boring and unjust world… 

Stick, wiggle, rub. 

Frenzied, he licks his gums, the buds on his tongue picking up on a barely bitter taste, and in an instant—the high takes over. It coats you like honey; warms you up like a woman’s body turned on by sex, rubbing against yours, teasing to make each body cell asking for more; and, at last, it spills through you with the best climax you’ve ever had.

* * *

Ressler, putting up his hood, pushes the Pershing Park’s wrought-iron door. The muck clings to the soles of his sneakers, and his nose twitches at the stench of stale urine and street bums. Hidden behind an uncut rose hip bush, he stares at the road, but his focus slips, thoughts, like cockroaches, crawling out of the gaps.

 _An old prick is late._ What if he’s onto him? What if his goons watched Keen’s place? What if there were cams inside? What if Keen’s neighbor needs something in the middle of the night? What if somebody saw Keen letting him in? What if…

_Calm-the-fuck-down, dickhead._

He deeply inhales the air through his mouth; his fingers slide down, reaching for the coke. As he rubs the powder on his gums, they aren’t sore anymore. Sniffing, he slips the bag back into the pocket. His eyes hang onto the black sedan, just pulling onto the street out of the corner. Xenon headlights sway to the rhythm of speed bumps, the engine’s purring almost inaudible.

Ressler, squinting, recognizes Reddington’s _Mercedes_. Two men get out of the parked vehicle, but a familiar silhouette in a stupid hat— _fe-whatever_ —isn’t among them. _Of course, the cavalry—because his precious Keen is in danger._

Ressler reaches for the gun.

_No._

Shooting is not a good idea—some overly responsible old hag will surely call the cops.

_Fuck. Think, Ressler, think._

A thought creeps into his mind: once he’s been chasing Reddington, running through just the same park. As a goodbye gift—a dozen stitches all over his face.

Spitting on the ground, Ressler rubs the footprint away with his sneaker, feeling a sizeable rock under his sole.

_That’s an idea._

Crouching, he hastily picks up the rocks, scattered here and there, shoving them into his pockets. This place is out of lampposts’ light radius, and it plays right into his hands. While Red’s goons are sniffing around whether the Concierge’s invaluable ass is safe to get out of the car, Ressler grabs a bigger stone, and aims. Back in the day, he's been a hitter, and it feels weird now.

_“Barrel it up, Ressler!”_

He lets out a breath—it's almost the school's baseball training, a piece of piss—and throws the ball. The stone hits the hood, bounces off the highly waxed surface. A bodyguard turns his head to the sound.

ZONK!

The next one hits at his jaw.

ZONK! ZONK! ZONK!

The second bodyguard rushes over to the passenger’s rear door and jerks the door open, gabbling away some words to the passenger, but he doesn’t get to finish—the stone hits right at the back of his head.

For a short instant, Ressler ducks—only to spring into motion again.

Twenty, fifteen, ten… The distance melts away between them, faster and faster. Ressler’s eyes register a familiar silhouette and tremble shots through his body. All these wasted years, all the fucking assignments he’s been picking up the pieces of himself after…

Reddington gets out of the car, closing the door with a gentle thud. Ressler doesn’t know how much noise he’s making—his heartbeat is hammering in his ears—but Reddington turns to the sound, his right hand reaching behind his back. Ressler, aware of Reddington carrying his _Beretta_ wherever he goes, exhales shortly and dives forward—it gets him a leg-up for a couple of seconds. Two leaps—and Ressler is in front of Reddington, the muzzle of his _Glock_ pressing against the black buttoned-up vest.

“Agent Ressler, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

The Concierge is as courteous as ever and doesn’t show any trace of annoyance when Ressler throws _Beretta_ the fuck away. When his palm is empty, a late thought pops in—he should’ve left the gun for himself… Whatever. He won't crawl around. _  
_

“Ah, yes, I forgot, you took an indefinite leave. May as well indulge yourself with a night walk.”

Ressler struggles to ignore him, nervously glancing around the surroundings. _No one._ It seems so, at least.

For an inexcusably long time, the Concierge fumbles with his _Rolex’s_ clasp, its silver links rattling. Ressler presses the _Glock_ into Reddington so hard the tiny button slips out from the buttonhole and rolls across the dusty asphalt.

“I’d have never thought you missed me that much, Donald.”

Ressler frowns, but the cocky smirk doesn’t leave Concierge's face.

_What the actual fuck?_

In a flirtatious manner, Reddington tilts his head to the side, shifts his gaze down Ressler’s jeans zipper, and then raises eyes on him again, stretching his mouth in a wide grin.

“I’m flattered. Considering all the times you have tried, with no visible success, to deserve my attention, it’s kind of ironic, don’t you think?”

Ressler’s brain stalls for a moment, taking in new information. Then it comes to him: he has a boner. _Damn, the coke works better than Viagra…_ A fleeting smile turns up the corners of the Concierge’s lips as he holds his gaze at him. As if he gets what Ressler is going through. As if he knows.

_He knows no fucking shit._

Ressler lunges toward Reddington, nestling the gun hard at his chin, their noses separated by a couple of inches. The shiver runs down Ressler’s spine, this time, anticipation sets in.

He, not Red. He calls the shots now. He decides what’s next. He, not full of self-importance arrogant, piece of shit, believing he has a right to mock him; think of him as a spineless, narrow-minded idiot, a slave to the system as it wipes its feet off him over and over while he turns his other cheek for a hit.

_He’s right, isn’t he?  
_

Sleepless nights—so many of them he’s lost count—are flashing before his eyes, taking him back to puzzling together a current investigation Reddington has given to the FBI, stirring up the memories...

 _Keen._ Cooing with Red, almost flirting, more and more shit coming off her mouth... The way she shuts up at once, seeing him, Ressler, approaching...

 _Reddington._ Ignoring the question, but answering the same question Keen asks. Patting Keen on the back, although this bitch would have done fucking nothing without his help!...

Concierge’s voice is ringing in his head, shutting off his thoughts. Ressler shakes his head. Keen’s gone, and a scene unfolds in his head… It’s chilly outside, but the skin on his forehead is on fire, his dick aching—it's not enough to just _watch._

His palm is moist against the grip, so he tightens his hands on the gun.

_Fucking shit!_

Reddington lazily raises the corners of his lips.

“Maybe next time, Donald,” he utters, completely ignorant of the gun shoved at the side of his neck. “ _Au revoir_.”

_He’s what, an idiot?_

“No,” Ressler presses the _Glock_ harder to remind him who owns a gun now.

“Excuse me?” Reddington repeats, raising his brow—as if he isn’t a finger-on-a-trigger away from death. As if he is making a fool of him.

_Again!_

“You’re coming with me,” Ressler grabs Concierge’s collar with his free hand, looking around— _where to go now?…_

“I don’t think so,” Reddington's tone is leniently-intimate, an examiner listening to a dumbass student. “Unlike you, I have some urgent business to attend to.”

He adjusts his vest, fixes his patterned tie, still giving two licks about the gun. Then—holds his gaze at him, assessing, weighing something. Next—glances sideways, at his—permanently disabled—security detail. And then again—at Ressler. His eyes travel down his hoodie, lingering at the muff pocket, bulged, with the last stone left. Red opens his mouth to talk his usual bullshit, but Ressler shoves the muzzle to his side, his free hand clamping around Red’s beefy neck. The concierge’s hat flies off and lands on the asphalt, right in a puddle.

“Do. What. You. Are. Told.”

The Concierge doesn’t resist— _of course, he doesn’t, he isn’t a dumbass_ —instead, Reddington is gabbling on like a broken record while they’re walking through a park, shadows stretching out around them.

“We don’t have much time, Donald.” He glances at his _Rolex._ ”Do you have a plan, at least? As far as I remember, impromptu tricks don’t fit your profile."

_Not even hiding his mockery. Fuck._

Ressler whacks the Concierge in the face with the gun. Reddington staggers but keeps upright.

“I never thought you had it in you,” he spits a wad of blood on the ground.

_Plan?_

The meaning behind the question escapes his mind, and Ressler closes his eyelids, inhaling slowly, drawing as much oxygen as he can.

_Plan. Yes. Of course, he has a plan._

“When was the last time you talked to anyone?”

The words drift away from him. He opens his eyes, and it hits him— _the park’s gone_ … He turns around, realizing—the park _is_ gone, and they are standing in the alley. 

_Get out. Fast. Something remote. Construction site, abandoned church, anything._

“You need a qualified—”

Ressler pushes him against the brick wall, shoving the _Glock_ under his chin.

“I’m _fucking_ fine.”

“And I’ve seen a report telling a different story,” Reddington argues, unfazed by his response.

_He, he has ratted on him to Cooper! He must’ve gotten to Vargas too._

BEEEEEP!

Ressler shots a glance at the road. It’s unlikely someone spots them from afar. _Probably, just another idiot blowing the fuck out of the horn._ His mouth stretches in a wicked grin.

_A taxi._

“Donald, you—”

Ressler knocks him out with the gun's butt, not interested to hear out whatever bullshit Reddington has wanted to say.

* * *

**Somewhere in Washington, D.C., 03:45 AM**

He’s dragging Reddington— _the fucking bag of fat_ —to the taxi. It’s much harder than he’s thought it’d be.

_“I’m so sorry… Usually, Dad isn’t a heavy drinker...”_

It’s stuffy inside—the windows aren’t rolling down in this bucket as they should’ve. His fingers drumming on the steering wheel, an Indian driver sings to a deafening tune, the rosary beads, and the hanging air freshener swinging to its rhythm too. The incense scent makes him dizzy, and Ressler presses his cheek against the half-rolled down window, breathing in the lifesaving oxygen.

The driver, his English poor, mumbles they’re on-site. Ressler, shoving the _Benjamin_ he has pulled out of Reddington’s pocket into the driver’s hand, gets out of the car. Waiting until the car disappears around the corner, he looks around. Somewhere in this neighborhood, there’s an abandoned amusement park, bordering the forest area.

Brushing the wet hair off his forehead for the umpteenth time already, Ressler drags Reddington over his shoulder. The residential area is left behind, and he, letting a sigh of relief, throws Reddington off his shoulders to the ground. The Concierge has lost his usual smugness: his vest buttons popped off, shirt’s sleeves darkened with dirt, tailored pants, covered in dust—if he hadn’t known Red better, he'd have bet the prick has stolen them from a hobo.

Catching his breath, Ressler throws Reddington’s body over his shoulders again. He barely takes a step forward as something hot and sticky drips from his lips. He brings his hand to his face and then looks at his blood-smudged palm.

Blood is everywhere—his palm, hoodie, jeans. It doesn’t stop even when he, throwing the Concierge off himself again, covers his mouth. He stares blankly at the Concierge: his blood is on him too. His collar is stained, fresh bloodstain spreads across his vest, cuffs splattered with crimson.

Ressler, staggering, pulls off his hoodie, smeared with sweat and blood. He clenches the hem of his T-shirt, wiping at his lips and nose so hard they itch, and presses his face against the fabric. Doesn’t help. He thrashes around as if locked in a cell, but in reality, a wasteland surrounds him, made of decaying swing rides remains. His eyes find an ugly gnome with a chipped hand and a knocked out eye socket, laying on the ground.

The gnome winks at him, bugs crawling out of his black mouth.

He isn’t scared of bugs, but his legs take a step back on their own accord. They keep creeping at him. He feels no ground beneath his feet—it’s black, buzzing, crawling. The black dots are scurrying around his sneakers, and he awkwardly stomps on them, forgetting about his bleeding nose.

The crunch under his sole becomes the crunch on his teeth. He spits something black onto his palm.

Something _alive._

Insects—tens, hundreds, thousands—are making their way up to his wrist, higher and higher, their ice-cold legs sliding across hit wet skin. He slaps himself—hands, stomach, legs, but it doesn’t help—his body now a hive. Under his jeans, his skin stings, and he frantically scratches his thigh through the thick fabric. Something is buzzing in his hair too; he jumps and hops, shaking his head. The bugs keep pouring, pouring, pouring, spreading their wings.

His mouth burns like he’s swallowed a chili peppercorn. He puts two fingers down his throat to throw up— _to breathe_ —and his stomach knots with pain, but instead of vomit, the next swarm of bugs flies off his mouth, their legs scraping his lips, lurking under his tongue.

Ressler drops to all fours, coughing up, gasping for air. He presses his palms against his ears, but the humming intensifies, and he closes his eyes. Not for long—they itch so bad he wants to poke them out, only if it helps… But he knows that there are bugs too, swarming beneath… He presses his knuckles into his eye sockets to crush them—pointless—new bugs curl around his fingers, crawling up, the corners of his eyes burning like he has washed up with acid.

_“Donald!”_

Ressler flinches and glances over his shoulder at Reddington’s voice—the bugs, a black rain, are pouring out from his hair—but he is still unconscious. Nearby, something glints on the ground.

Red’s cuff link.

It winks at Ressler, and his mind clears up. The bugs run across his neck for one last time and disappear—gone for good. He digs his fingers into the soil, panting.

_This wasn’t real. Wasn’t. Wasn’t._

Back on his feet, he glances at Reddington whose body is seven feet away from him. The Concierge lets a weak sigh, his eyelids twitching a little, and then opens his eyes. For an instant, his gaze is drifting over the surroundings, out of focus: he looks like a drugged bear in a zoo, trying to cope with his disobedient body. His manicured fingers—Ressler would bet the last two grams of dope he’s a regular at the manicurist’s—dig into the soil, clenching grass in an attempt to hold onto something and stand up. On the second try, he succeeds; he sits down and examines, with apparent displeasure, his mucky suit. He lets out a low grunt and then shifts his gaze onto Ressler.

The same instant, Ressler pulls out a gun and aims it at Reddington, the gun decocker clicking. Words are rolling on his tongue, but he can’t scramble them into coherent utterances.

“You. All… Mexico… Anna… I know. Vargas. This bitch. You and her… Yeah.”

“Donald, listen—” Reddington’s smooth voice is suave, as always— _as then_ —and Ressler’s hands start trembling.

“SHUT UP!”

The echo rockets up the skies, dissolving in the morning mist. It doesn’t influence the visibility—Reddington is still in his sights.

His eyes. Ressler has seen them hundreds of times, but only now it strikes him: they are the _same._ Every day he sees them in the mirror.

The _same._ Shade, color, same shape, damn it. How? How is it possible?

_Reddington stole his eyes?_

He hates green—and it’s all over the place. Around him—trees with yellowing leaves sticking out from the soil; a bit further, where no one has set a foot before—dense grass, green with rotten-gold despite the fall; to his left—ruins of a light green _Ferris_ wheel. _Green, fucking green everywhere!_

“Look at yourself, Donald,” Reddington’s voice is piercing through the noise in his ears.

“I’ve told you already: SHUT UP!”

Someone tugs at his hand. With the corner of his eye, he notices the fingers covered with soot, clutching his wrist; then someone pulls at his sleeve.

_“Arjuk! Aetu malana!”_

“Get off me!”

Ressler doesn’t even look back, he just wipes the sweat off his face with his forearm. There are crimson smudges on a fabric— _blood, from where...?_ —and he shakes his head like a tired bull. Reddington’s green eyes float across him—and it seems to him he’s looking in the mirror, at his apartment, in the bathroom…

_No, it’s Reddington, there he is, right in front of him!_

_“Arjuk! Arjuk!”_

Ressler jerks his arm, freeing himself. _Fucking beggars. Now is not the fucking time._

“Donald?” Reddington’s eyes gleam, an odd expression in them he can’t make out. Ressler raises the gun, both hands on it, the _Glock’s_ muzzle pointing at him.

“I told you to shut up!”

_“Arjuk! Aetu malana!”_

_Will he shut the fuck up or no?!_

Not putting the gun down, Ressler lifts his foot to kick the beggar the fuck away—but his body grows numb when he sees a chest riddled by bullets and a gray T-shirt.

_He._

The boy from _Ciudad Juárez._

His face is similar to **c** **avalero** on the Day of the Dead— _how does he know it?_

Ressler cast a sideways glance at Reddington. _Yeah, of course._

He clenches his right hand on a gun and grabs the boy by his blood-stained T-shirt.

“How much has he paid you?!”

He doesn’t remember it in Arabic, but the dead eyes of the boy _understand_ him. If he didn’t have a gun, he’d have shaken a confession out of him—but he can’t put the gun down, otherwise, the fucking Reddington will flee again.

_Like he always does, fuck._

“Donald?”

“QUIET! Don’t you see, I’m in the middle of interrogation?”

“No one is here, Donald,” Reddington’s voice is nauseatingly polite, and Ressler glares at him.

_What does he mean, “no one”? Arrogant prick! So who the fuck is in front of him now, huh?…_

Ressler turns his head to the boy.

He has no face anymore.

White powder, black eye sockets, florals. Loops, swirls, spirals… The blaze of hues hurts his eyes; he’d be glad to close them, but the soot-stained fingers are reaching to his eyelids, and press, press so hard against them...

_“Arjuk!”_

Not a voice—hiss. The burning smell eats at the inside of his nostrils.

Someone strokes his face, puts their hands on his shoulder, their palms slide down his chest... He hears a whisper, but can’t make out the words.

**Roaring laughter.**

**Mocking eyes in the green fog.**

**Woman’s lips sucking on a _Chupa Chups._ **

**Wide-opened teary eyes.**

**A black hole between the eyebrows.**

_Him. All him. Reddington._

He has set the whole thing up since the very beginning.

The thudding in his temples grows into hammer pounds, and Ressler lifts his arm, aiming the gun—a classic agent's shooting stance.

Reddington doesn’t flinch; his glowing eyes are... _curiously?...fixed_ : no, not on the gun’s barrel, but him, Ressler. His hands are shaking—it’s a miracle his gun hasn’t slipped out of the grip—but Ressler stops them from it.

_He has to finally die._

With an accustomed movement, Ressler’s pointer squeezes the crooked lever.

**_CLICK._ **

Reddington doesn’t move an inch.

Ressler stares blankly at the gun in his hand. He pulls the trigger once again—it gives in, lets out another “ _click_ ”, but Reddington is still in front of him, alive and unharmed. Mocking, taunting him.

Ressler’s thumb presses the mag release.

Nothing.

He pulls the trigger again. And again. Again. Again, again. _Goddammit!_

The gun responds with a hollow “ _click-click-click-click-click.”_

He glances at Reddington, expecting a smirk, laugh, anything, but Reddington shakes his head gravely, a brightening sky mirroring in his green, unreadable eyes.

“You forgot to load your gun.”

Ressler stares in dumb disbelief at the freaking _Glock_ and sees an empty mag well: no clip is in.

“You _really_ need help, Donald.”

Ressler hefts the _Glock_ up and puts it into his own mouth.

_He’ll pull the trigger, he’ll do it now. Yeah, he will._

_Click._

Reddington closes his eyes.

Sirens wail in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just imagine Diego doing THAT with the gun ;) Anyone's in for Ressler and gunplay? *volunteers*  
> *  
> I hope you enjoyed this ride even if it took me ages lol:3 And pleeeeaseee, feed my muse, folks, she's hungry :P

**Author's Note:**

> Mr. Bokencamp, if by any chance you read this, let me tell you this: this is one of the Blacklist storyarcs we could have had. Just imagine unleashing Diego's immerse talent into playing the very last scene.  
> \-----------  
> Their mental/psychological games turn me on better than any slash smut :D No offense, folks, it's just the weird way I am)  
> \------------  
> Ressler as a junkie on the show was delicious, yes, but me and Gwyllt have spruced his addiction up to a much more hardcore level here. The more I re-watch the junkie eps, the more unsatisfied I get, you know? Because... I mean, you saw how Diego played a junkie? I swear if they hadn't wrapped it so quickly (and dumb, meh), but let Ressler fall further into that darkness... Boy, imagine what things Diego could've played...  
> \-----------  
> Diego, if by some miracle you read this... *giggles hysterically* Well, I wish I could say I'm sorry, but I'm not :D Ressler deserves better stories, deserves the depth and characterization, and, of course, he deserves to crack the whip when it comes to Reddington ;)


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